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Friday, August 24, 2007

God's Warriors

Last night and the night before (this post was started last week), Beth and I watched two parts of a three part series entitled "God's Warriors." The series dealt with Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, and looks at the impact that each religion has had in the past, and the impact they want to have in the future. I was very impressed by this mostly unbiased series reported brilliantly by Christiane Amanpour. Although some presuppositions going into the documentary seemed subjective, she did not make any value judgements or try to show which views are right or wrong. She was not trying to show any truth or falsity in the religions. She simply showed the different views inside the respective religions.

And not to go off on a tangents, but I believe that's how must documentaries should be. Just show people. If you go into a documentary production with a certain idea or bias, where instead of just showing what IS, you are more quick to select examples and ideas and etc. that will be shifted towards your own preconceived ideas (i.e., confirmation bias). Movies and films like that, supporting ones own causes and agendas are fine, but don't call it a documentary.

Anyways, this series, "God Warriors," however, was a documentary in a lot of ways.

Before I go any further, I must also say, that I pretty much abhor cable news, CNN, Fox News, and the other underlings. I'll watch it from time to time, but things have gotten pretty ridiculous. And "ridiculous" is being nice. No news channel is unbiased (suprise suprise!), and most of the program features either: a.) the ravings and rants of the right or left; b.)after a disaster occurs, they must immediately place the blame so it won't happen again (a ridiculous and rather racist notion that only belittles and profiles particular people); c.)Lindsey Lohan, Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie, - I mean seriously, you know more about these few blathering blondes than you know your own relatives; d.)how close we are all to dying of the bird flu, or mad cow disease, or anthrax, or etc.; or e.) predictions on who's going to win an election that's OVER A YEAR AWAY.

So, needless to say, I did not expect something of this caliber on ANY cable news channel. Instead of saying any of the religions were wrong or right, she simply stated, "Okay, here is what *IS*; all religions claim they are right, claim exclusivity, and have the same goals of reaching all of mankind. Can we reconcile anything? What can we do to more peacefully coexist?"

I thought that was pretty cool.

More thoughts to come, but for now you can check out CNN's site on it: www.cnn.com/godswarriors